The Antarctic continent expresses climate change through its transforming physical landscape. Scientists and artists attending to this can be transformed themselves, coming to know it. Because most people will never see Antarctica, its voice is largely unheard; most are untouched by it. Some who have worked there have expressed their knowledge through poetic and scientific texts. In this research, methods of improvisation have been adapted from established dance and drawing practices to develop a series of on-line animations. Improvisation offers the animator processes through which to transmit something of the Antarctic landscape experiences some have reported: a heightened sense of being for a moment in a place where no line separates internal from external experience. Animation, the visual language of change, can begin to give voice to the profound kinesthetic connections that some have made with Antarctica’s changing landscape, through direct physical experience, or in gestural response to the texts of some who have worked there.
THIS is what I am writing about.
Dear Lisa
The site is not sending me emails relating to updates so I look in from time to time to see what you are up to. As before, it’s a treat to watch your growing confidence asserting itself in these manifold statements of intent.
I’m aware of the sentences and phrases that you choose to keep and repeat. Again, as before, it would be wonderful to arrive at an animated version of this evolving paragraph. A space where Robert Tey’s time slices reveal how this text has evolved. But I’m projecting my imaginings on to your work and that’s not really fair.
First, it would be useful for you to write something that extends beyond the poetics of the blog. By that I mean, an extended text, that digs deep into your field of interest.
You’ve raised some very interesting lines of investigation in the piece above. From where I sit there is one line that stands out:
…a heightened sense of being for a moment in a place where no line separates internal from external experience.
Would you be able to take that line of thought and write about the following?
1. How you (personally) have experienced that internal/external integration
2. In what ways we can understand how others have experienced that heightened sense of being
3. How you have gone about simulating this kind of experience through dance
4. The process you have used to translate this into animation
Would you do this?
Second, it’s interesting that you write about Antarctica as an intelligent being capable of expressing itself. There is much to say about this notion of an intelligent landscape or the earth as a living organism. Is there a history of this idea in relation to the Arctic or Antarctic regions?
I’ve noticed that some people also use this argument to absolve themselves of responsibility for stewardship: that this is just a cycle where the earth rids itself of the blight of humanity. There must be profound things to say about our very presence in a region so inhospitable to humankind. Is this something that you would consider writing about?
Either way – the theme of this comment is the need for you to write an extended text.
Best wishes
Simon
Dear Simon,
I still have trouble uploading media to the Blog, so I have disabled many of its functions, and am reinstating and testing them one by one to try to solve the problem. This could be why you are not receiving the updated Posts and Comments.
I have begun writing more extensively, and will upload something of this when I am happy with it.
Many of your questions are starting to be answered, through animation and words. The past few weeks I have been dancing, drawing, animating, and interviewing artists and dancers about their improvisation process, and am just now writing about all of that, to work out their interconnections.
All your questions are excellent. Thank you!
Best wishes,
Lisa